Record July 2009 Sea Surface Temperatures? The View from Space

Since NOAA has announced that their data show July 2009 global-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) reaching a record high for the month of July, I thought I would take a look at what the combined AMSR-E & TMI instruments on NASA’s Aqua and TRMM satellites (respectively) had to say. I thought it might at least provide an independent sanity check since NOAA does not include these satellite data in their operational product.

The SSTs from AMSR-E are geographically the most complete record of global SSTs available since the instrument is a microwave radiometer and can measure the surface through most cloud conditions. AMSR-E (launched on Aqua in May 2002) provides truly global coverage, while the TMI (which was launched on TRMM in late 1997) does not, so the combined SST product produced by Frank Wentz’s Remote Sensing Systems provides complete global coverage only since the launch of Aqua (mid-2002). Through a cooperative project between RSS, NASA, and UAH, The digital data are available from the same (NASA Discover) website that our daily tropospheric temperatures are displayed, but for the SSTs you have to read the daily binary files and compute the anomalies yourself. I use FORTRAN for this, since it’s the only programming language I know.

As can be seen in the following plot of running 11 day average anomalies, July 2009 was indeed the warmest month during the relatively short Aqua satellite period of record, with the peak anomaly occurring about July 18.

Click for larger image

The large and frequent swings in global average temperature are real, and result from changes in the rate at which water evaporates from the ocean surface. These variations are primarily driven by tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations, which change tropical-average surface winds by about 2 knots from lowest wind conditions to highest wind conditions.

As can be seen, the SSTs started to fall fast during the last week of July. If you are wondering what I think they will do in the coming months, well, that’s easy…I have no clue.

62 thoughts on “Record July 2009 Sea Surface Temperatures? The View from Space”

“The large and frequent swings in global average temperature are real, and result from changes in the rate at which water evaporates from the ocean surface. These variations are primarily driven by tropical Intraseasonal Oscillations, which change tropical-average surface winds by about 2 knots”
Finally something that makes sense of both higher low latitude temps and the colder high latitude temps experienced this summer. I can’t wrap my brain around a lot of the science on this blog but ‘The global heat pump was not working as hard this summer’ makes sense and is consistent with both sets of observations.

That´s awesome, 0.2 degrees!!! Who in the world can feel such a nano temperature difference. It is obviously an employee´s compromise so as to not to offend his/her boss. It is so tiny that looks like he/she just wanted to make a tiny lie, kind of free sample bias. Pitiful indeed!

FTA-“As can be seen, the SSTs started to fall fast during the last week of July. If you are wondering what I think they will do in the coming months, well, that’s easy…I have no clue.”
Hmm that correlates with the apparent decline in El Nino….

Francis (17:55:45) get with the program.:
The satellite measurements must be calibrated by the traditional measurements. Please read that sentence again:
The very accurate satellite measurements must be calibrated by the very inaccurate traditional measurements.
By this means, the satellite temps can be “distorted”; I’d hate to bring up the word “fraud”; I really would.

Douglas DC: You wrote, “Hmm that correlates with the apparent decline in El Nino….”
That would be interesting if an El Nino started and then ebbed in “mid-Nino”. Keep in mind that the following graph is of weekly data and it ends in the week centered on August 12th. Also look back at the prior El Nino events and notice that they do dip at times on their rises to the peaks in November, December, January, so you really can’t predict anything from the recent two-week dip. It would be nice, though, if the NINO3.4 SST anomalies did, in fact, follow Dr Spencer’s graph above as you suggested.http://i26.tinypic.com/16273hz.png
I’ll post an update at my website on Monday when the weekly data is updated.

The very accurate satellite measurements must be calibrated by the very inaccurate traditional measurements.
I was thinking about this today too….
Why the divergence in the land based measurements and satellite based measurements since 2008? From 1979 to 2008 they match pretty well with an offset. Since January of 2008, all bets are off.

I think it might be interesting to see what this precise graph looks like when lined up with the various hurricane intensity charts. (Throw in all the cyclones and other measurable storm systems.)
That is: Can we connect the temperature changes to any specific storm features? Or are even the Katrinas just too small to be discernible directly from their thermal effects on the global sea temperature chart?
Directly determining the “cloud feedback” would be excellent.

It seems like I read, a while back, that the SST can be as much as 2 Degrees Cooler after a Hurricane has gone through. If that’s true, and considering that a major hurricane can be as much as 3, or 4 hundred miles across, and that one can travel a couple of thousand miles after forming (that could be as much as 600 – 800,000 sq miles, right?) that’s a pretty big swath.
Add in the fact that we, normally, have fourteen, or fifteen (I’m kinda pulling these numbers out of a hat) Named Storms, and seven, or eight (yep, same hat) hurricanes just in the Atlantic, and it seems like a couple of seasons of greatly reduced activity would surely leave a considerable amount of “warmer” water than would an “average” season. Especially, when the “Global” Hurriane/Typhoon/Storm index is way down for a couple of years, such as it is now.

So, are the “monthly corrupted (er, corrected) temperatures” recorded (for the official, long-term GISS and HADCRU records) based on a number-days-at-temperature method, or monthly-high + monthly low temperature/2 (net average temperature)?
If the latter, then a single three or four day hot spell of “high” temperatures could skew the whole month’s “average temperature”, when actually 26 days were below the anomaly average and four days were higher than the anomaly average.

UAH has “Ocean” in 1998/July listed as 0.45. 2009/July as 0.38http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
April 1998 was much hotter across the board: Global, Land, Ocean.
Ocean temps seem to move at the same time, or a month or two Before, Global.
Looks like monthly is pretty much “wiggle-watching.”

SST might probably not be the most relevant measurement for global warming. But still, it’s interesting to follow the game Earth keeps on playing with AGW-believers, and Skeptics as well, depending of which parameters we observe. Only one thing is for sure: It’s not game over!

So I had a thought today. (amazing, eh?)
Imagine a hurricane season where storms track across the gulf stream into the Gulf of Mexico. Now imagine a season where storms track ALONG the gulf stream. Do seasons where storms track along the gulf stream cause a reduction in heat delivery to Northern latitudes and result in lower temperatures and greater ice pack? Do years where storms track mainly into the gulf only briefly crossing the gulf stream result in warmer arctic conditions?
Would a persistent change in the Bermuda High such that storms tracked along the gulf stream for several years result in colder conditions overall?
Note the number of Atlantic storms in the 1960’s and the conditions then. Note the number of Gulf of Mexico storms in the 2000’s and the conditions then.
Just wondering if dissipation of heat by storms traveling along the stream results in a significantly cooler gulf stream when it arrives up North.

“crosspatch (01:19:28) :
So I had a thought today. (amazing, eh?)
Imagine a hurricane season where storms track across the gulf stream into the Gulf of Mexico. Now imagine a season where storms track ALONG the gulf stream. Do seasons where storms track along the gulf stream cause a reduction in heat delivery to Northern latitudes and result in lower temperatures and greater ice pack? Do years where storms track mainly into the gulf only briefly crossing the gulf stream result in warmer arctic conditions?”
Interesting idea.
If it’s true, this should be a doozy of an example. Wunderground has current tracks taking the storm past us in N.E., on up to Nova Scotia where it looks like Halifax will get quite a spanking, and then the 5-day forecast takes it accross the northern Atlantic back over to the UK, where it makes landfall as a tropical storm.http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200903_5day.html#a_topad
If you click on the historical tracking map on that link, it looks like the last storm that may have done this was back in 1883.
JimB

Just eyeballing the graph, why didn’t the headlines read, “Lowest January SST anoms on record! Highest SSTs only 18 months later! Earth experiencing record mood swings!”
Honestly I kept wondering where all the fuss was a year and a half ago when it looked like SSTs were plummeting. Or was that when they were insisting that there was something wrong with the satellites?

As a layman, I understand only one thing here. If the global sea surface temperature data are reliable (which is subject to specialists’ opinion), in July 2009 the average sea surface temperature briefly (for couple of days) exceeded previous peaks observed since 2002. Since then it has sharply fallen to the much lower level. There are no reliable data registered before 2002 that could be compared with this set of data.
On the basis of this 7-years long set of supposedly reliable data, is it possible to make far-fetched conclusions about coral bleaching, Arctic ice melting, or decades-long global warming trend? Shouldn’t a self-respecting journalist limit his/her conclusions to the same period of time that is represented by the data being discussed?

“crosspatch (01:19:28) : said
So I had a thought today. (amazing, eh?)”
If your huricane hypothesis has any credence I will lay claim to it. If not I would like to point out I always thought it was a stupid idea 🙂
Hope someone will report whether Hurricane Bill provides any evidence of my (your) interesting idea.
tonyb

Roy Spencer said:
“As can be seen, the SSTs started to fall fast during the last week of July. If you are wondering what I think they will do in the coming months, well, that’s easy…I have no clue.”
But I do and you can check the argument for yourself at: http://climatechange1.wordpress.com/
Incidentally, ENSO 3.4 is a very poor guide to the change in global tropical temperature and therefore the temperature of the globe as a whole. Why spend a lot of money and effort trying to work out what drives the temperature in an unrepresentative section of the tropical Pacific? Its a complete red herring.
‘If the trade winds blow the ocean cools’ is not a new observation.
Looks to me like the southern ocean is largely back into negative territory. It is in the South that El Nino is manufactured.

The term “global SST” bothers me. The entire Earth? (at least the wet part) That’s a lot of water, some warmer, some colder. What is the footprint or measuring area? Obviously, some of it overlaps land, at least part of the time. Resolution better than 0.1 degree C (perhaps 0.01, just eyeballing the graph) seems just a bit over the top.
I suspect the signal/noise ratio is somewhat lower than the satellite operators will admit.

So we have had the LOWEST SST ON RECORD!!!! and the HIGHEST SST ON RECORD!!! in about the last 18 months. Both anomalous by about the same margin. Doesn’t seem like anything to get worked up about, especially since the period of record is so short.
Unless, of course, you are suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias.

Interesting to see the interplay between the rate of oceanic energy release (slight El Nino) and the climate responses which appear to be quite rapid.
We seem to have a continuing development of polar cooling despite the current tendency towards El Nino conditions.
The mid latitude jets overall are still more equatorward than they were during the late 20th Century warming spell which may explain why Hurricane Bill is being drawn into the mid latitude jet stream rather than driving into the Gulf of Mexico.
Unless the air circulation systems move more poleward than they are at present then there will be no resumption of warming global air temperatures.
If we have had a background CO2 warming for the past decade which had been offset by the recent La Nina then this return towards warmer ocean surfaces ought to have had a stronger effect in mitigating the current polar cooling.
The big test will be whether or not the warmer ocean surfaces release enough energy to mitigate the development of large and intense cold areas over the northern continents this winter.
Note that warmer ocean surfaces involve a reducing ocean energy content unless the solar input is enough to replace the energy lost.
Warmer SSTs usually result in a cooling ocean bulk but a warmer air (for a time).

Totally off thread
WUWT that readers might want to go to the Radio 4 website for the listen again version of “Any Questions” for an exchange between Jonathan Porritt, a well know UK AGW alarmist and James Delingpole, who recent interviewd Plimer for the Spectator.
Porritt made sevral outrageous statements suugesting that the like so of Delingpole were lying and actually got away with a 7 metre SLR that JP did not counter. JP also under the delusion that the UK media publish lies about CC when 99% of them, with BBC in the van, recylcling the usual AGW tosh.
JP mentioned the 30,000 scientists who has signed Oregon which left Dimbleby incredulous. Usual retort that they weren’t all climate scientists. But then neither is Porrit.
Cheers
Paul

SST is just one part of a big, complicated puzzle. The emphasis by some on SST while leaving out other facets of global climate, like, for example, what Arctic ice is doing, makes me feel, once again, there is a bias on the alarm side of the global warming issue.
The North Pole ‘ice free in five years’, and being in a ‘death spiral’, predictions are not panning out. North Pole ice is in a growing trend. But that is not headlined in the media. Instead, a temperature reading from part of one month is.
They ‘strain out a gnat and swallow a camel’. The gnats are getting shorter lived all the time while the camels are getting bigger.

Re Radio 4
Bad typing
Porritt made several outrageous statements suugesting that the likes of Delingpole were lying and actually got away with a 7 metre SLR that JD did not counter. JP also under the delusion that the UK media publish lies about CC when 99% of them, with BBC in the van, recycling the usual AGW tosh.
Regards
Paul

Roy Spencer (09:19:13) :
I just posted a new mystery that has emerged about these SST measurements…so far, I’m clueless as to what is going on:
Dr. Spencer, thank you for your refreshingly honest and humble insights.

crosspatch (01:19:28) wrote:
Do seasons where storms track along the gulf stream cause a reduction in heat delivery to Northern latitudes and result in lower temperatures and greater ice pack? Do years where storms track mainly into the gulf only briefly crossing the gulf stream result in warmer arctic conditions?
Crosspatch-
I don’t know if this information is relevant to your question, but…..I have read more than once that it is NOT the Gulf Stream that keeps northern Europe milder than it would otherwise be that far north. The warming was creditted to the temperature of the air, which was kept ‘warm” by the Atlantic. The explanation was that N. Europe has a “maritime” climate, like that of British Columbia (and even southern Alaska), where it is milder air that keeps the climate mild.
IanM

Ron de Haan (03:12:27)
Dave, you not only beat me by two hours, you can also prove it.
The science is settled.
Ron, you’ve once again demonstrated that WUWT is populated by people with more scientific integrity than any of its competition. I see Anthony has still not updated his h/t though, I may have to be in touch with my attorney. Given the irony challenged state of the scientific types around here, I will hasten to add, in the words of one my childhood favorites, Foghorn Leghorn, “That’s a joke, son”.

NOAA’s information does not agree with the satalite data, CRUT3, which shows a sharp downturn in sea temperatures. Could it be that NOAA is selectively choosing its data in order to be politcally correct. See Dr Roy Spencers latest blog about the comparision between AMSR-E and Crut3. His blog at; http://www.drroyspencer.com

The very accurate satellite measurements must be calibrated by the very inaccurate traditional measurements.

Accurate satellite measurements? Perhaps the actual measurements are accurate, but after accounting for satellite drift and overlapping data, one of the biggest adjustments to any global temperature data series was the UAH satellite record (2005). But also satellite data needs to be calibrated against surface data because they’re measuring different quantities. The satellites ‘measure’ the temperatures (infer from spectral radiance) of ~8 km of the lower troposphere, whereas the surface measurements (thermometers) are taken within a couple of meters of the surface. Both have problems.

The principal cooling of the ocean in the tropics is from evaporation, (followed by cloud cover intensity) if there is a pattern of slower wind speeds across the surface, surface temps in those regions will increase, also higher wind speeds encourage deeper mixng of the surface water further reducing surface temps.. Is there any evidence of such a linkage ?
The tropical storm belt this season seems to have been fairly quiet so far, the recorded increase may simply reflect the atmospheres responce to a quiet sun.
Its been noted that the depth of the atmosphere has shrunk signifigantly in the last 3 years: what impact will this have ?
Then there is the issue of cloud cover : I havn’t seen any recent figures. has the planets cloud cover increased, as some theory’s have proposed in responce to GCR’s increasing. Then there is the issue of whether clouds have a net positive or negative effect on ocean surface temp.

Clouds increase albedo and decrease radiative energy loss.
Is there a link anywhere for the net difference globally ?
Different clouds have different effects and clouds come and go constantly so the calculation would have to be based on averages and assumptions with a sizeable error margin.
On balance I’m inclined to the view that cloudiness variations are not a first order effect in the way that changes in the rate of energy release from the oceans would be.
Thus I suspect that the warming and cooling of the air above the oceans as a result of ocean SST changes would drive cloudiness changes far more effectively than changes occurring in the air alone (such as from increased cosmic rays).
Is there any comparative data either way ?

Another thought…
Just as Willis Eschenbach described so convincingly the multiple tricks that the water and air elements have up their sleeve to provide balacing mechanisms through tropical storms that lower the temperature when solar heating increases… perhaps the opposite is also true in general. Perhaps the loss of tropical-storm-driven evaporation from spray has the general effect of raising sea surface temperatures. And perhaps we can now add the lowering of hurricane frequency to this effect.
Cooler sun >> cooler land temperatures but also >> less ocean storms >> warmer SST – eh??? any hard evidence of this?

“On balance I’m inclined to the view that cloudiness variations are not a first order effect in the way that changes in the rate of energy release from the oceans would be.”
ITCZ Cu-Nims reflect sunlight, they pump trade winds over areas larger than their albedo/shadow effects and they keep going well beyond sundown.
I reckon no clouds 20N to 20S for 6 months would lead to a sharp global temperature spike up, whereas all cloud would cause sharp cooling.
Does that conjecture seem feasible?

Sandy (15:47:42)
I currently see the ITCZ Cu-Nims and all other air circulation systems as part of the mechanism whereby the air responds to changes in the rate of ocean energy release.
The observed latitudinal movements of those systems in the air always seem to follow oceanic phase shifts at approximate 25 to 30 year intervals.
The 6 month example is unhelpful because it cannot happen. No clouds leads to more Outgoing Longwave Radiation from the surface to space so not necessarily a sharp spike up over land or in the air anyway but there would be more energy entering the ocean for a while until the rate of release came to match it so you could get an initial cooling in the air even while the oceans warmed then later the increased energy coming from the oceans would bring the air back to the previous temperature again.
Always remember that the oceans are cooling whilst the air warms and vice versa. There are two entirely seperate regimes in air and water usually (but not always – depending on solar variability) moving in opposite temperature trends
Similar complex consequences if there were solid clouds for 6 months or more but in reverse.

I have a question which maybe Dr Roy can best address or anyone else who knows; Just what the heck is the basic physics of these satellite based remote microwave radiometer measurement techniques.
I have a basic distrust of anything that smacks of a “proxy” for something else.
Having spent 25 or more years believing that the only good thermometer for ordinary temperatures is a silicon bandgap thermometer; but one thing it is not is a remote sensing device; in fact that is one of its strengths; it responds to the real temperature of a specific location that in practice can be an area that is as small as 50 x 50 microns or less.
But if Dr Spencer or some other expert can explain this microwave remote thermometer to us; it would be enlightening.
George

First, it has to be established that this ocean warming measurement is real.
I think it is already safe to conclude that whatever is happening is almost entirely natural and not humanmade.
Why? Because (I’m guessing that) humanity does not have nearly enough horsepower to effect such rapid warming and cooling changes.

George E. Smith (14:44:35)
But if Dr Spencer or some other expert can explain this microwave remote thermometer to us; it would be enlightening.
I don’t know exactly what your looking for, but I came across this primer on the methodology of satellite measurement of SSTs some time ago. I found it fairly tough sledding technically but was able to fathom most of it eventually. From the tenor of your comments that I’ve read here I suspect you’ll find it less challenging than I did.http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/avhrr/primer/primer_html.html
I hope this is the kind of info you were looking for.

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